Recently we received what appears to be a pretty complete list of the 6.0 Racial changes being made. Many existing racials are being left alone, but others are being removed outright due to the variety of stat changes. Others have simply been revamped to reduce crazy imbalance. Today Metro will walk through each and every announced racial and give his thoughts on the change, the implementation, and the relevance. Its important to realize that they are trying to make all races more viable for each role, so pay attention to some key changes!

As always, if you have comments or suggestions about which racials you’d like to see added, head over to the stratics forums to discuss the changes further!

 ALLIANCE RACIALS:

Human lose Mace/Sword specialization –
Obviously, the stats are no longer in the game. RIP

The Human Spirit changes from 3% spirit in 5.4, to +X TWO secondary stats of your choice –
Its already been discussed it will work via a fly-out menu like Mage Portals, and the downside of the ability will be the stats will be evenly split. Thus, if crit is your best stat, instead of 1 percent crit, you have to choose from .5 percent crit and .5 percent haste etc. I feel this is a strong and interesting racial and look forward to seeing exactly how it works in game. Considering spirit is useless for pretty much everyone aside from 3 specs that are human-compatible, I feel this is a necessary change. Imagine now being able to pick mastery and haste as a Human protection Paladin! Very nice!

Draenei’s Heroic Presence changes from hit chance to your most primary stat –
This was a HUGE talent for first tier PvE on alliance side and has always been the biggest redeeming quality for a faction lotted with some poor picks. Now that hit is being removed, this was the only logical choice, and remains pretty good in my eyes. Hit percentage was essentially value for players, but 1 percent extra intellect is a HUGE difference as its not linear. This racial is very strong, and will give even more merit to Alliance side PvE.

Draenei’s Gift of the Naaru heals for the same amount, but over 5 seconds –
I still feel this is horribly outdated and just plain strange in the game today, but now that its more bursty of a heal we can begin to consider it useful. The current version heals 20 percent of the CASTER’S health over 15 seconds, and now is changed to 5 seconds, meaning instead of 4 percent health every 3 seconds its now 4 percent every 1 second. It is still a 3 minute cooldown, and obviously requires considerable  micro management, so I still would not consider this great, but I feel it syngerizes pretty well with the previous racial discussed. Imagine a tank with 1million health getting 1 percent extra Stamina, AND this heal every 3 minutes. Sounds pretty lucrative! Not so much for healers though.

Night Elves Quickness also gives 2 percent movement speed –
EASILY the best tanking racial in the game for the longest time, especially on Horde side. In classic, that 2 percent was nearly as much as your gear allowed so it made Night Elf mandatory for Protection Warriors. Its not as good as it once was, but now that you are also moving quicker, it seems pretty fun. This isn’t a racial you switch for in order to min/max mythic bleeding edge progression, but this combined with the next mention may make Night Elf’s a pretty interesting race to play…

Touch of Elune grants a passive 1 percent haste during night, and 1 percent crit during the day –
This is by far the most interesting one we heard of and honestly tough to figure out. Its important to remember that come 6.0 there is no more haste “breakpoints” and they have said that they intend to make ALL specs benefit from stats as near-equally as possible to make stat selection mostly playstyle based. With all this in mind, its hard to argue with cool racials like this, but the issue is the game really does not have a definitive day-night cycle that people can live by. Especially since the nights are barely dark anymore, this makes me think they will be making big plays towards bringing this back! Here’s hoping!

Gnomes’ Escape Artist CD reduced from 1.5 minutes to 1 minute –
1 minute is barely different, but this is essentially Hand of Freedom as a racial, so I’m not sure how I feel about this. Either way, doesn’t effect PVE and Gnomes are by-in-large the most silly looking race as it is, so what’s another trick up their sleeve?

Shortblade Spec is now Nimble Fingers, granting 1 percent haste –
Standard after seeing other races by this point. Haste is great for casters, and many Gnomes play mages, so works for me. No complaints.

Expansive Mind now also gives 5 percent more energy, rage, and Runic Power –
This is kind of expected, but strange. 5 percent of a mana pool is MUCH more than say 105 rage, especially when nothing really costs 5 rage. I’d be interested in actually seeing how many more abilities you can get off with this racial per different adjustment, but either way it was a needed change. Gnomes are dumb though, so why not make Gnome DKs even more odd? 105 Runic Power!!

Dwarfs lose Mace / Gun specs and gain Might of the Mountain, giving 2 percent crit damage and healing –
Once again, pretty standard. Neat concept as crit healing can be more effective than actual crit chance and there is essentially no way to get it in this video game. Its especially great for Paladins, and I must say my first paladin was dwarf… Time to get back to my roots? JK

Stoneform changed to add removal of a Magic and Curse. Still DOES NOT remove them while CCed –
It’s important to note that this does not actually break magic CC like Polymorph. Regardless, this is a fine change for me, especially for non-healers. I’ll say this, this ability was god-like back in AQ and Naxx with all the stacking poisons, especially on Bug Trio in AQ40. Glad to see it get another look and make it a strong option. Dwarfs are looking quite strong for actual DPS roles again!

HORDE RACIALS:

Undead’s Touch of the Forsaken having its scaling rate changed –
Likely means it will be even better, as per the other racials we have seen. The amount of damage it does currently is not bad especially as a Warlock or Shadow Priest, but the healing is probably the best part of this. There are SOOO many fights where this makes a considerable difference as a caster DPS, so if they make it scale harder and heal for even more, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite changes. Time will tell.

Will of the Forsaken changed from current 2 minute CD to 3 minute CD –
 Another insane nerf to this ability. Back in the day it was essentially a second trinket, and when they nerfed it the first time, a LOT of people quick the game over it, citing they had spent money specifically to go Undead and felt they should be refunded. Obviously they were not, and it rose to top 10 reasons for unsubscribing at the time. Will it happen again? Who cares, grow up PVP kids. Moving on…

Blood Elves gain Arcane Acuity, 1 percent crit passive –
Boring at this point, let’s see more Night Elf style ones! How about “BE gains Arcane Redux, giving X for every magic user within 15 yards of the player!” Imagine that! Ya that won’t happen. Oh well, crit is pretty strong for Holy Paladins, stronger than nothing I suppose. I’ll take it.

Arcane Torrent also restores 20 Runic Power, or 1 Holy Power, on top of the 3 percent mana, some rage, 1 chi etc –
Interesting, especially the Holy Power part. Excited to see what this does for Paladins and how it works. Obviously, all 3 paladin specs use both Holy Power AND mana, so I have to believe it will grant both which is absolutely amazing. Follow the progression of the racial from TBC when it was confusing and horrible, to Wrath when it was completely mandatory for Holy Paladins (not like there was another option.) It used to restore 6 percent of your mana, and all we did back then was stack intellect so it was pretty much another mana potion. Glad to see it back to its glory, and keeping the interrupt. Was worried about that!

Orcs lose Axe spec, and Hardiness is nerfed to only 10 percent stun reduction (down from 15 percent) –
:[ This sucks because it really made Enhancement Shaman and Weapon Warriors strong. Now with it gone, its a flat nerf.

Tauren’s Endurance becomes +X Stamina –
This description is really not helpful, I hate when they do that. But either way, one has to believe that this is actually meant to be a buff. Previously it buffed based health by 5 percent, which meant as the expansions went on, this got worse and worse. Somewhat the same boat as the Night Elf racial, only Dodge doesn’t get worse as we go. In Classic and TBC though, this racial was KING and made a huge difference for Protection Warriors, just like the NE one did for so long. Good to see it reevaluated, because at this point, it was getting irrelevant.

Tauren get Brawn, giving Crit damage and healing increase of 2 percent –
Same as Dwarf, and I love it. Really makes Holy Paladins actually consider Tauren. Still wayyyy too lopsided with the BE racial buffs though, but at least there is a reason to play it now.

Troll’s Berserking huge nerf from 20 percent down to 15 percent on-use haste –
This is massive and if implemented today would probably decrease Elemental Shaman’s dps by a good 5 percent as they are so centered around their burst. Its a shame, but probably needed, especially after we saw what happened with ToT and the Beast passive.

Goblin’s Time = Money becomes 1 percent haste instead of cast speed –
Never played a goblin, but I’ve always see strange reports about how this actually effected breakpoints and stuff. Many people claimed it was BIS for casters, and others said it was horrible. Best to just avoid the confusion and make it haste, especially now with the the removal of the breakpoints. I’m satisfied.

 

Ok so that’s it for the first round. There will likely be tweaks as we continue, so I will update everyone as we hear stuff. Remember to discuss these changes over at the forums.

If you don’t I will be quite upset.